2026 Ekphrastic Poetry Competition Winners
2026 Musical Ekphrastic Poetry Competition Winners
Touchstone is happy to announce the winners of the Summer 2026 contest based on Ravel’s Miroirs.
First Place Winner
Beth Fox
Second Place Winner
Cathy Thwing
Third Place Winner
Lorena Maria
You can read the winning poems and hear the music they were based upon below
We will be reading these poems and celebrating the collaboration between poetry and music at Spring Hill Studio on October 18 at 3PM:
https://psnh.org/events/october-18-music-and-poetry-at-spring-hill-studio/
First Place Winner
Beth Fox
Beth Fox loves being connected to the arts and the community of poetry in New Hampshire. Her work is found in The Poet’s Touchstone, The Seacoast Anthology, Covid Springs II, and the 2010 Poets Guide to NH. Her chapbook, Reaching for the Nightingale was published by Finishing Line Press in 2024. A finalist in four New England contests, she helped seniors publish their work in an anthology, Other Voices, Other Lives. Often found on the water, Beth kayaked 35 miles on Thoreau’s wilderness route in Maine. She loves being outdoors, spending time just noticing. Beth lives in Wolfeboro.
Esther Buffler (1st, founder)
Robert Dunn (2nd, 1999–2001)
Maren Tirabassi (3rd)
John Perrault (4th)
Mimi White (5th)
Elizabeth Knies (6th)
Mark DeCarteret (7th
John-Michael Albert (8th)
Kimberly Cloutier Green (9th)
Erine Leigh (10th)
Mike Nelson (11th)
Tammi Truax (12th)
Diannely Antigua (13th, appointed in 2022)
Lauren WB Vermette (14th)
Myles Burr (15th, 2026–present)
Movement 4. “Alborada del gracioso” (Spanish: “The Jester’s Aubade/ Morning Song of the Jester”). D minor — D major. Dedicated to Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi, Alborada is a technically challenging piece that incorporates Spanish musical themes into its complicated melodies.
With interludes around 17 (as tempo changes to sound of water) and 21 (with the final rise in tempo)
After I listened to this piece, I read about Ravel and Calvocoressi forming Les Apaches, the brilliant group of artistic outcasts he called hooligans. With the liveliness of this piece, I imagined Ravel coming to Portsmouth and the Hoot, meeting all fifteen Portsmouth Poet Laureates—and this poem tumbled out.
Sadly, Ravel suffered from progressive cerebral degeneration, but the Hooligans surely carried on with his music.
Second Place Winner
Cathy Thwing
Cathy Thwing has been teaching writing at community colleges since receiving her MFA in Creative Writing from Eastern Washington University. You can find some of her recent poems in Heartwood, the Orchards Poetry Review, and Touchstone. Gardening, practicing cello, and swinging in hammocks fill her life’s other nooks and crannies.
2. “Oiseaux tristes” (“Sad Birds”) – Dedicated to Ricardo Viñes, this movement represents a lone bird whistling a sad tune, after which others join in. The rambunctious middle section is offset by a solemn cadenza which brings back the melancholy mood of the beginning.
Third Place Winner
Lorena Maria
Lorena Maria (they/them) is a nonbinary, Latine poet and writer of the Guatemalan diaspora. Their work has been supported by SAFTA and Grubstreet and appears in the Orange Rose Literary Magazine, Touchstone (PSNH) and the Querencia Autumn Anthology (2025). Lorena presently serves as a poetry reader for Sabr Tooth Tiger Magazine and the Princemere Poetry Prize.
1. “Noctuelles” (“Night Moths”) – Dedicated to Léon-Paul Fargue, Noctuelles is a highly chromatic work, maintaining a dark, nocturnal mood throughout. The middle section is calm with rich, chordal melodies, and the recapitulation takes place a fifth below the first entry.